Griffin Powermate with Streetdeck (yet another thread)

So I finally picked up a Powermate from the mp3car store on the cheap. I got it mainly to use with SD so I could scroll through large lists. I'm really trying to figure out the most efficient way to use the 6 settings I have available to me. I already have volume control on a different knob.

The problem I've run into so far: Setting the Powermate to scroll up/down when I turn it left/right works great, but then I want to be able to push down on the knob to select whatever is highlighted (i.e. artist, XM station, module on the main menu). I set it so pushing it down equals left-click of the mouse. The problem is that it doesn't select what's highlighted. It selects whatever the mouse cursor is hovering over, which is the last place I touched... not the highlighted item. I played with it for awhile to see what else I could do, but I can't get it to work otherwise.

Any suggestions? People care to share their Powermate configurations to give ideas?

Finally, where can I see a full keyboard map with the default key mappings for Streetdeck? It's not in the manual and I can't find one anywhere in this forum either. It would help if I knew what keyboard keys triggered what in SD, then I could just use the Send Keys function of the Powermate software to get it to do whatever I want. I found this thread from way back when:

So I finally picked up a Powermate from the mp3car store on the cheap. I got it mainly to use with SD so I could scroll through large lists. I'm really trying to figure out the most efficient way to use the 6 settings I have available to me. I already have volume control on a different knob.

The problem I've run into so far: Setting the Powermate to scroll up/down when I turn it left/right works great, but then I want to be able to push down on the knob to select whatever is highlighted (i.e. artist, XM station, module on the main menu). I set it so pushing it down equals left-click of the mouse. The problem is that it doesn't select what's highlighted. It selects whatever the mouse cursor is hovering over, which is the last place I touched... not the highlighted item. I played with it for awhile to see what else I could do, but I can't get it to work otherwise.

Any suggestions? People care to share their Powermate configurations to give ideas?

Yep. Set the powermate so that a push down on the knob sends an "enter" or "return" keypress instead of a click. That will fix your problem.

Finally, where can I see a full keyboard map with the default key mappings for Streetdeck? It's not in the manual and I can't find one anywhere in this forum either. It would help if I knew what keyboard keys triggered what in SD, then I could just use the Send Keys function of the Powermate software to get it to do whatever I want. I found this thread from way back when:

A full, default keymap would be VERY useful...especially when setting up new keys and trying to avoid conflicts with existing keys. Maybe GoC has such a list somewhere and could easily post it...

I also read an older bug report where S4Per talked about the inability to fully navigate SD with a keyboard. Seems this is still the case. Any ideas?

IIRC, the difficulty S4Per had was two-fold. First, the buttons on SD weren't always arranged so that they would highlight in order when pressing the up or down arrows. That is an easily solved issue that has to do with the xy button alignment in the skin itself, and is easily fixed (and user configurable) with the skin editor. S4Per didn't want to have to do that himself though, as he felt that's why he'd paid for SD (which I certainly understand).

The second issue concerned going "back" in modules. The problem was that when using the left and right arrows to navigate the buttons on a particular module, if the left most button was already highlighted, then another left arrow press caused SD to return to the previous module. This is a problem when attempting to use the arrows to input information on the onscreen keyboard. That issue has not been addressed to my knowledge.

SD is usable with the keyboard for sure...it's just not as convenient as a touchscreen. I use both a powermate and a touchscreen, and SD works well for me. I can post more info about my powermate setup later, if you're interested.

Thanks a ton for the great info, Park. I'm now slapping myself on the forehead for not thinking to just associate the Enter key with the pressing down. Duh.

Yeah I'd definitely be curious to see what settings you have. And since I already have a separate volume knob, I'd like to hear suggestions on what to use the extra two functions I have available to me. At first thought I'd use:

Turn Right = scroll down
Turn Left = scroll up
Press Once = Enter
Press and Hold = ???
Press and Turn Right = ???
Press and Turn Left= ???

I really tried mouse cursor movement with the press and turn functions and really liked it, but I can only go left and right OR up and down... not all four. Wish it had just two more functions...

I assigned press and hold to go back to the main screen (by assigning the home screen as "H" in SD and sending that key from powermate). That way, if I screwed up while advancing through the menus, I could "reset" and start over just by pressing and holding. That was more intuitive to me than going back a single screen.

I assigned the press and turn functions to skip ahead or back a single track. Since you have a separate volume control, you could simply turn to skip tracks, and then push and turn to play/pause (that can be assigned as one function, so a single push turn would play, and the next would pause, etc.), and stop.

I really tried mouse cursor movement with the press and turn functions and really liked it, but I can only go left and right OR up and down... not all four. Wish it had just two more functions...

Yeah, I think that would be more frustration than it's worth. I mounted my powermate on a cutdown joystick base, and then used Mouse2Joy (a great, free program), to allow mouse movement/arrow keypresses when I moved the entire powermate forward/back/left/right on the joystick axis. It's a little work finding a joystick suitable to mod like that, but the powermate+joystick base really simulates an iDrive (BMW nav controller) pretty well. There is a pic below:

Don't mean to hijack a thread but another suggestion would be a touchpad with StreetDeck it works extremly well and there is nothing to program.

I'm using one in my install it's great you can perform all of the StreetDeck gestures on the touchpad, the far right side of can be used to scroll up or down, or for volume control depending on how you set it up in StreetDeck.

This is the default key map. Its just the raw code, but it should be pretty easy to figure out. m_KeyMapCtrlShift means Ctrl + Shift are pressed with the key, m_KeyMapCtrl means just ctrl is pressed with the key, etc.